Need trap help.

[Lunk1]

What the hell can I do to get my traps to be friggin HUGE??? 1 certain lift or combination of lifts???

[Turkish Juicer]

Before anything else, one should be reminded that whether you will develop a given muscle group to a freaky level is determined by your genetics.

Training and diet comes second and third.

I have far from perfect genes for traps, however, I have developed them to a level that has exceeded my initial expectations. Here is how it all happened:

1. I trained my traps twice a week for a couple of years, until they starting coming out nicely. Once in a shoulder day, and again on back day (with 4 days in between).

2. I did 4 sets of shrugs in one trap session, and 4 sets of cable upright rows for the second session of the week. In each session, I warmed up the muscle first, pre-exahusted it with a pump set, and followed either the pyramidal method or a different method where the weight remains the same throughout the sets with 30-45 sec. rest time in between sets.

3. I varied my shrug exercises between dumbell shrugs and smith machine shrugs, latter being my preference for the session if I felt the need to go really heavy with better isolation of the muscle and greater control over the movement. I always used either straps or hooks when I went heavy for obvious reasons.

4. Whenever I felt like my muscles were getting used to the exercise and not responding on a level that I would like them to, then I would add crazy drop sets to the last set of the exercise, forcing the muscle to grow. I did this for both upright rows and shrugs.

5. Supersets always come in handy when you hit a plateau with a muscle group IMO. Nowadays, I work my traps only once a week, either supersetting shrugs with rows or conducting both exercises in one session, conventionally.

Hope this helps,

TJ

[DanB]

get hooks or straps

shrugs

load up a barbell at end of shoulder day, pyramid down to 2 rep max then finish with a drop set back up to the weight/reps you started with

[chuckfinley]

holy s*** that sounds brutal DanB lol. what i love to do with my traps is superset barbell shrugs with a medium weight DB shrugs and go to failure on the DB shrugs, then wait a couple more minutes and repeat.

[mirin_serratus]

snatch + cleans on leg day should be enough

[mg2336]

I do all the normal exercises but I also take a band and hold it over my head with my arms fully extended and then I lower my arms and pull the band apart at the same time. If you do it nice and slow you should feel it in your traps. I think its called a band pull apart. I'm not sure though

[mg2336]

I also do alot of heavy deadlifts which put a lot of emphasis on your traps so I would say give those a try too